Wednesday, September 5, 2007

The first entry where I complain about school work

Spanish. For a quiz on Friday we have to memorize the names of 24 countries, and both the masculine and feminine ways to say someone is from that specific country. So for Nicaraguan I need to remember Nicaraguenese and Nicarageunsa. There's that crazy Motley Crue thing on the u, but I'm not sure how to make that without copying and pasting. This is insane. The quiz also covers Ser, the verb to be and llamarse, to be called, aka naming yourself and others. Yes, llamarse is significant, but do I really need to know how to say Finnish, especially considering this is Spanish 101 and it's only the SECOND WEEK. Como estas? Now let's memorize countries. It's like forgetting how to spell these countries and memorizing a way to spell them incorrectly. Venezuelan? nooo, that's Venezolano. Worst of all, this IS NOT IMPORTANT. Myself and every other student in the class will forget how to spell most of these countries after the quiz is over. This isn't important for a Spanish course. There's nothing I hate more than pointless memorization. Well...there probably is, but this second there's nothing I hate more than it. SKLHDghlSDLGJLK

Ok then. So how has my night been otherwise? Kinda shitty. I've just felt really empty and alone and like nothing could change that. I put on "100,000 Fireflies" which is a sort of musical therapy for me and that helped a bit. I don't know if I can blame Spanish entirely for this spiral, but it's certainly not helping me get out of it. I need a day of peace. Please. Just let me sit with a book that doesn't have to do with Psychology. Let me read something that I don't need to respond critically to and write a "squirb" giving my insight. I like Clark so far, I really do, but it's not easy. Teachers say "don't stress out" like it's something we can control. So you're saying you'll be assigning a ton of work and we should just take it on, no sweat, with no fears? I wish that could be the case. There's grades to aspire to. I hate the beginning of courses when there's no grades as of yet and you have an idea how the class is going to be but not how difficult the teacher will be with their assessment. I wish I was taking an art class this semester. It keeps me balanced and really helps me from getting overwhelmed. That's one thing I loved about Assumption...the art was surprising great there. I loved my drawing and painting teacher and its unfortunate that I had to leave that without the upper level courses. I'm not devoted enough to go to art school, but I love the freedom that art provides me. Even when the assignments were strict- painting a specific still-life using only two colors you're free to approach the medium in the way you feel most comfortable, and that's encouraged. There's no right way to do anything in art. That flexibility compared to the MLA regulations and strict formating rules in many of my other classes gave me some room to breathe when I felt close to being smothered. Right now the cellophane is getting a little too close for comfort. They say you get into the groove and soon you're going steady, but maybe rather than us overcoming the difficulty we succumb to it.

My two psych courses are pretty stressful, particularly Qulitative Methods. There's a quiz every day in that class on long readings and also a simultaneous observation project that we need to work on at least twice a week. Then we have "Squibs," basically extra credit pieces that we write responses to the readings. However the amount of people partaking in them makes them practically essential if you want to succeed. The professor's ratings on RateMyProfessor are incredibly polarizing. It goes from love to basically saying the guy is an arrogant asshole. I'm not sure how I feel, though at the beginning and giving me a "re-read the syllabus" answer to a clarification question didn't put him on my best side. He's all about us taking charge and doing things our own way. Like I said for art- I like doing things my own way, so this should be right up my alley, right? Well for art it's not only quality that goes into a grading system, but effort and experimentation. It works as a progression. There's no way I can say this without sounding completely pompous, but kids in my drawing class were getting B's on pieces that I could draw better with my left-hand in 3rd grade. For a 10 page paper quality is the key deciding point, and when we have no guidelines regarding what to fill those pages up with, it's more than a bit intimidating. I'd agree there's too much bias in writing towards leading towards what the professor would approve of...well, sucking up. We say learning is key, but grades are really it. To an extent grades can show what we've learned, but there's too many factors that also play into learning to simply confine it to that. However, Hampshire, a school I visited had no grades. Instead you needed to write a 3 page essay each week about how you're growing as a student in respect to this course. I also don't think we can judge learning that quickly. So much of those essays must be complete bullshit. Hampshire was a strange place...it cost $45,000 a year to go there and was in the middle of nowhere, with its admissions office was on a farm. And the student body.... well this gives you an idea: "Its annual Halloween party, referred to by some as "Trip or Treat" for historically widespread use of hallucinogenic drugs, was once profiled by Rolling Stone magazine".

I'll continue this later. From the span of the entry earlier tonight to this one I've decided that I missed having a me-blog. It takes the edge of of things. I'm more leveled now than I was earlier. I still don't know how to say Pakistani in Spanish, but that's besides the point.